The landscape of free speech is in constant flux, and Baron provides important context to the current debates.
An expert on language reviews the complex issues around free speech and what they mean for democratic practice.
Free speech is one of the key principles of American democracy, but Baron, an emeritus professor of English and author specializing in this field, describes it as more like “free speech, but.” Despite the First Amendment prohibition on government regulation of speech, there have always been exceptions and rules. It is a vital area for study and debate, but a problem with the book is that Baron, while presenting himself as a dispassionate expert, shows his liberal leanings too often. When he discusses extremists who would limit free speech, he focuses only on conservative activists, ignoring the left-wing variety. Though Donald Trump’s presidency was unquestionably chaotic and most likely corrupt, the author’s tone regarding the former president feels like he’s trying to score points with liberal readers. For example, in the section on the prohibition of threats to the president, he skips over the many threats to assassinate Trump, such as the public statement by Madonna that she wanted to blow up the White House, and instead focuses on Trump’s (admittedly) dubious pronouncements. He also includes a long section on gun ownership and the Second Amendment, although the connection with free speech is not clear. Despite these issues, Baron provides a useful and interesting examination of the court cases related to free speech and includes a discussion on the changing parameters relating to obscenity, sedition, artistic expression, and threats. Passing a law is one thing, and interpreting it for practical application is quite another. “Despite the large body of legal rulings,” writes the author, “the border between protected and unprotected speech is seldom clear or stable, which may leave speakers unsure about what they can say and when. Laws may protect speech, but they always leave some speech unprotected.”
The landscape of free speech is in constant flux, and Baron provides important context to the current debates.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-00-919890-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Cambridge Univ.
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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